Yes, your reading of the situation is otherwise pretty wrong, too. If you'll note, the new ISIS victories are concentrated on the border, because that was the epicenter of their activity to begin with. We've largely stopped hearing about their progress in the direction of Baghdad--probably because there isn't any. At last report they were stalling out as they actual Shia areas. This dynamic makes it unlikely they will seriously threaten the capital.

Further, that was a pretty gross misrepresentation of Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani. While he did indeed make a call that was largely heeded by the Shia militias, he's been quite forceful about the fact that people shouldn't do this with a sectarian attitude. In fact, long before John Kerry said anything, it was he that was demanding Maliki take steps to form a more inclusive government in light of the crisis. Finally, Kerry's request is not entirely unreasonable, either. Mass desertions are above all, at least an implicit statement that many troops did not find their government worth fighting for. The only way to change that is to institute some sort of confidence-building measures.

It's also a bit silly for Kerry to demand Iraq sudden hey-presto itself into a functional democracy

This isn't what Kerry is asking, though.

Malaki has been purposefully antagonizing Sunnis with his policies. Kerry has been asking for him to reach out to the Sunni community. If he would do so, then it would be harder for ISIS to find support among on-the-fence or more moderate Sunnis for their cause.

The "drive to Baghdad" was a red herring anyway though. Why would ISIS even want to mess around in the city? Personally, I think that all of ISIS's issued public ultimatums about Baghdad had the exact response that they wanted. It caused all of the official Iraqi government forces to give up and abandon their positions and retreat back to the city. Someone in ISIS must be a proud student of Sun Tzu.

Think about it. ISIS has extorted/amasses/conned anywhere from estimates of some multiple of millions of dollars, including oil reserves, refineries, and power generation. If the ultimate goal is to create a state that is comprised of Eastern Syria and Western Iraq, ISIS has all the goalposts it needs. Resources-check. abandoned military equipment-check. Border crossings-check. Even if the ISIS state isn't officially recognized, which it won't be, it still has a de facto state within a country to do with what it wants.

The Kurds have the extreme Northern part of Iraq. The Syrians have Damascus and the Lebanese side of Syria. The Iraqis have Baghdad and at least the port side of Iraq. ISIS has the middle sections of both Iraq and Syria.

So ISIS recently took Mosul, demanded poll tax (or death) from all non-Muslim citizens, prompting the Christians of the area to flee to Erbil (in the autonomous Kurdish region) as refugees. They were not allowed to take with them any of their belongings.

They tore down all crosses from churches and hung up their own black flags in their stead. There are also unconfirmed reports of houses of worship having been burned down or desecrated in other ways. Then they went ahead and blew up a historic shrine built atop the purported tomb of Biblical prophet Jonah. Nice going, lunatics!

A poll tax is a tax on the right to vote. That's not what ISIS are doing. This supposed "poll tax" is literally protection money in the way the Mob offers you protection from them tearing up your store. The fee is the Jizyah tax. It's right out of primitive Islamic tradition, applies to anyone not of the Muslim faith living under the caliphate -- a dhimmi. The sense of the word is "protected", in the way cattle are protected (or protected as in the Mob example above) -- second class citizens in every sense of the term down to a dhimmi's life being worth about half or less than that a of Muslim at shari'a. Dhimmis at shari'a legally cannot protect themselves -- there is serious, lunatic debate about whether it's possible or not to rape a dhimmi (bet jesusfan would enjoy that debate). Dhimmis also can't win converts to their religion and historically were required to wear a distinctive sign of their faith. Put it this way, the yellow star Jews wore under the Nazi regime has a very long history, and it didn't originate with Christianity. Under ISIS, Christian dwellings are marked with this symbol--

Yes, I know what the jizyah is. I didn't know the definition of poll tax, but I've seen jizyah translated as such before, so I just went with that instead of the foreign term. But seeing as it's a poor translation, I stand corrected.

To add to your background about the jizyah, the entire point of the jizyah is to lower the prestige of non-Muslims within the Caliphate, by keeping them poor. You're not really supposed to be able to pay it. That is to say, you're supposed to be able to barely survive. It's designed to bribe you over to Islam, in essence.

Light red is what they've claimed where they're fighting or have influence. Though they also just tried to invade Lebanon a day or two ago, which isn't included in that map. They claim they could go all the way to Mecca.

Turkey has now joined the United States, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel in pledging to support the Kurdish armed fighters... which is interesting, given Turkey's relationship with the Kurds.

First off, what do you mean how is Assad faring against them? I don't recall the US ever going ahead with the strikes in Syria.

With Iraq, I think the US should continue the humanitarian aid drops, and that's it.

With the current scope of the announcement, the President really didn't have to authorize air strikes per se. I think it would be more accurate to call them "air support," as the scope applies to supporting US troops operating in the country. (mostly Irbil, North of Kirkuk on Ghost's map) But air support would be authorized anyway under US Central Command, which has authority for the troops there. So in that regard, this authorization announcement is more PR focused. To a lesser degree, air strikes could be used to help the Iraqi security forces protect civilians, but it's unknown what extent this would take.

The problem with using airstrikes against ISIS is that any damage would be levied against infrastructure that isn't theirs. Let's say a US strike targets a refinery used by ISIS. That refinery is actually Iraq's that was captured by the group. It would put the US in the all too familiar position of bombing something which is more detrimental to the citizens in the area that was bombed, and then probably having to rebuild if and when everything gets resolved.

I think Ghost is asking how the Syrian Army/Hezbollah/Revolutionary Guard is faring against ISIS in Syria. To which I would respond I don't think Assad or his allies have tried very hard to stop them. It's my understanding that they are a very convenient enemy in terms of propaganda, because they are so universally despised. Their presence also causes more internal conflict among the rebels. So Assad's tendency has been to attack other, more legitimate groups, and leave the most toxic/problematic ones like ISIS intact, so that he can then depict them as the face of the entire revolution.

Gotcha. I got confused over the "them" following right after authorized airstrikes. Yeah, Wocky just covered Assad vs ISIS. Assad has been actually pretty active with airstrikes, but as mentioned, these have been directed to protect his own interests. I don't think he really cares all that much about Eastern Syria.

At one point Assad's forces were dropping metal barrels full of black powder/explosives/TNT on opponents. Those must be quite nasty. Think of the pressure cookers used at the Boston Marathon, but 100x bigger....It also shows a level of desperation, (or maybe just not giving a crap) especially since its coming from supposed government forces.

But if Assad is ignoring ISIS to deal with the other rebels doesn't that have the potential to backfire if he lets them grow to powerful? If ISIS wanted do they have the strength to take Assad's territory or is Assad too powerful for them to deal with?

I'm no expert in the current civil war, but I would take that strategy as somewhat desperate on the Assad regime's part. Until the now-Islamic State became a major player the rebels were holding their own.